2012 IEEE Vice President, Publication Services and Products

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The biography and position statement of the 2012 IEEE Vice President, Publication Services and Products, is listed below.

David A. Hodges

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David A. Hodges is Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1970. He served as Dean of Berkeley’s College of Engineering from 1990 to 1996, and retired from regular service in 1998. He held research and management positions at Bell Laboratories from 1966 to 1970. An IEEE Fellow since 1977, he was a co-recipient of the 1983 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Technical Field Award and was the 1997 recipient of the IEEE Education Medal. Hodges is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and has served in the past as a corporate Director for Megatest, Mentor Graphics, and Silicon Image, and as a Trustee of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the International Computer Science Institute.

IEEE ACTIVITIES:

COMMITTEES/BOARDS: IEEE Awards Board MAL (2007), Vice Chair, (2008),

Chair (2009-10); Educational Activities Board Treasurer (2005-07); IEEE Finance

Committee (2005-07); PSPB MAL (2001-05); Chair, TAB/PSPB Products/Services

Committee (2003-05); PSPB N&A Committee (2005, 2008); PSPB Strategic

Planning Committee (2008); Board of Governors, Eta Kappa Nu Association

(2008-11).

REGIONS:

Region 6.

SECTIONS/CHAPTERS:

San Francisco Section, East Bay Chapter.

STUDENT BRANCHES:

Advisor, IEEE Student Branch at UC Berkeley, 2000-06.

SOCIETIES:

Chair, Solid State Circuits Council (1975-76), shortly before its

advancement to Society status; Elected AdCom member and Treasurer, Solid State

Circuits Society (1998-2005); Fellow Committee Chair, SSCS (2005-2007); Life

Member, Solid-State Circuits Society, Electron Devices Society, and Circuits and

Systems Society.

CONFERENCES:

Conference Chair (1978), Program Chair (1977), IEEE

International Solid-State Circuits Conference; Executive Committee, IEEE

International Symposium on Semiconductor Manufacturing (1999-2007).

OTHER:

Editor in Chief, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (1971-74); Founding

Editor, IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing, (1987-90); Past

member and Chair of Awards Board selection committees for Education Medal,

Noyce Medal, Nishizawa Medal, and Medal for Engineering Excellence.

QUALIFICATIONS:

I have been involved with PSPB since 2001, initially as a Member at Large, and have attended most meetings of PSPB since 2001. I participated in the deliberations leading to creation of the Member Digital Library and IEEE Enterprise. I chaired the PSPB/TAB Products and Services Committee as it formulated and advocated the ultimately approved proposal to revise the publications revenue distribution policy, giving greatest weight to “hits” on Xplore rather than published page count. I participated actively in the discussions on IEEE’s response to the “open access” movement. While serving on EAB, I was involved in the planning for Expert Now, a valuable electronic-only series that should be made more easily available to individual members.

I have a high interest in maintaining and improving the reality of IEEE’s reputation for top quality in all its publications.

With reference to IEEE Board service, my past experience as a Director of 3 public corporations, and as a Trustee of two nonprofit research institutes, will be helpful.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

Following are high points of my prior participation in IEEE activities:

Past Editor-in-Chief for Jour. of Solid-State Circuits and Trans. on Semiconductor Manufacturing. Each is the international leader in its field.
Former Faculty Advisor to the IEEE Student Branch at UC Berkeley, winner of several recognitions for outstanding programs and activities.
As Chair of the TAB/PSPB Products and Services Committee, led the difficult negotiations and votes that revised the revenue distribution from IEL to give more weight to article usage and less weight to page count.
As EAB representative on the IEEE Finance Committee, gave strong support to the new model adopted for financing EAB, Awards Board, and Spectrum.
As Vice Chair and Chair of the Awards Board, a leading role in defining and securing funding for the IEEE Medal in Power Engineering, filling the void left by the demise of the Lamme Medal. Also, a leading role in defining the scope of the new IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technology, funded by Toyota Corporation.

POSITION STATEMENT:

Quality goals

IEEE’s publications, particularly the Transactions and Conference Proceedings, are key elements supporting IEEE’s strategic plan. We must continue to be the world’s leading provider of top quality technical publications. Most of our Transactions are the best in their fields. In cases where they are not, internal IEEE remedies have been elusive. Partnerships with other associations or organizations may be helpful in achieving our quality goals. Our cooperation with ACM and ASME for conferences and publications in certain fields, and our recent agreement with IBM, are examples of positive steps to assure that the highest quality technical content is available through IEEE Xplore.

Support for design, development, and applications engineers

IEEE’s publications and conference proceedings are very helpful to those working in research or advanced development. Members working close to final applications don’t find enough to help them. Some help could be offered by enabling very inexpensive access by individual IEEE members to EAB’s Expert Now series. So far, focus has been on subscription sales to big corporations, but only a few sales have resulted.

Another desirable offering would be on-line compilations of selected published articles, patents, and standards, aimed at helping members who need to catch up in a new field. Compilations must be selected and combined with expert narratives explaining the important relationships among the included items. This was the original program of the IEEE Press in the 1970s, at that time very well received by IEEE members. Though this is unlikely to be a profitable program today, it would become a valuable member benefit. We must not require that everything IEEE does produces an incremental surplus.

Open access

Widespread demand for access to publicly-funded medical research has led to Federal legislation mandating limited public access to research articles in those fields. Proprietary publishers of leading journals in medical fields never took the initiative to respond creatively to the reasonable demands of tax-paying lay audiences.

IEEE, a non-profit publisher, is in a different situation. Much of our content is not based on publicly-funded work. For practicing engineers, IEEE and Society Memberships are the best means to low-cost access. There is little demand by the non-professional public for free access to our publications. We offer single-paper and package purchase plans that make our publications available on reasonable terms to individuals, companies, and universities around the world. We do not face serious competition from the (subsidized) Public Library of Science or similar open access providers. Finally, we should remind critics that surpluses from our publications program are devoted to public and professional educational purposes, not to stockholder dividends.

I do not favor any change in IEEE’s current position on open access. I urge continued monitoring of open access competition in our fields, and judicious experiments (as we have done before) when IEEE Societies or other OUs come forward as sponsors.

Rationalization

IEEE cannot go on indefinitely at the recent rate of creating new publication titles. It will not expand our customer base, nor does it help our members maintain both breadth and depth in their professional skills. My impression is that proposals for new publications sometimes originate with members who are unable to persuade reviewers and editors of existing publications to accept their submissions. Meanwhile, some old Transactions continue within aging silos, publishing papers that attract few readers.

PSPB needs to work with TAB and the publications review process to find a way for existing Transactions to modernize and broaden their scopes, or, in some cases, to merge or shut down. Eventually, IEEE may need to depart from the (hardcopy-based) publication model with distinct titles and discrete periodicity. Wise decisions on these matters surely will take time, but we need to start the discussion.

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